Once upon a time in New York City
Nov. 27th, 2010 12:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakTomorrow is the first advent Sunday, meaning 'tis the season for Christmas (or *insert holiday of choice taking place in late December*) related stories has arrived. Naturally, I have a Beatles-related one, featuring sentiment and a touch of dysfunctionality as seasonal stories often do. The time frame in question: winter of 1975/76. The place: New York City. John and Yoko are reconciled and new parents; Sean was born (on John's birthday) October 9th 1975. Now, as detailed in this post, John and Paul had seen quite a lot of each other during John's 18 month separation from Yoko, the Lost Weekend. Paul and Linda had seen Yoko at least once (either she was visiting them - Paul's version - or they were visiting her - Yoko's version - but either way, it was a friendly occasion, featuring Yoko drafting Paul of all the people as marriage counsellor). But Paul and Linda had not seen John and Yoko as a couple together since the really bad old days, and hanging out with John plus girlfriend-with-no-backstory simply was different from facing JohnandYoko again. Still, a new baby plus Christmas was the perfect excuse for a visit.
Sidenote: this wass not the famous "we almost were on Saturday Night Live" visit which was dramatized in the film Two of Us, which took place some months later, in April 1976.
Now, how do you say hello to John Lennon and Yoko Ono (and new baby) if you're Paul McCartney, thus optimistc by nature but not 100% sure about how you're going to be received, with enormous potential for awkwardness as well as friendliness? Here's the method of choice according to an eye witness of the encounter, photographer Bob Gruen (that's the one who took the famous New York City photo of John):
There was a big flash of paranoia when the doorbell rang. It was like, 'Oh my God, who can that be?' In the Dakota, every visitor gets announced from the desk downstairs, so when the bell on your apartment door rings suddenly, it's a real fright. It wasn't just a little paranoia - they were very scared, very nervous. They said to me, 'Go see who it is, don't open the door until you know what's going on,' and I went to the hallway and I heard what sounded like kids singing Christmas carols. So I called back to John and Yoko, 'Don't worry, it's some kids from the building singing carols,' and when I looked through, it was Paul and Linda. They were singing 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas', very cute, kind of adorable, just standing there singing. I said, 'I don't think you're looking for me; come on, I'll take you into the bedroom where John and Yoko are,' and they kept singing all the way in.
Let's interrupt Mr. Gruen here to state for the record that Paul and Linda serenading John and Yoko with "We wish you a merry christmas" is so unabashedly, endearingly and shamelessly sentimental that only Paul M. would have come up with it. John and Yoko, it appears, couldn't help but be charmed.
You know, you read about all the animosity between them, about how the Beatles' wives don't get along, but they all seemed like giddy old school chums. Hugging, patting each other on the back, the guys were like high-school buddies who hadn't seen each other in a long time and really liked each other. The girls were very chatty and pleasant. If you didn't read the magazines, you wouldn't know Yoko and Linda were supposed to hate each other, they were getting along just fine, continues Bob Gruen. They all went into the next room to look at Sean, who was just two months old.
Yoko in her obituary for Linda in Rolling Stone says, referring to that same visit and the preceding time: John and I would play Paul’s latest Wings record in our kitchen. John would say some nice things. He couldn’t say it to Paul, never, but when Paul was not around, John would say nice things about him. Was the ice finally starting to melt? (...) Paul and Linda came to visit us in New York. In a fine old Liverpool tradition, the two guys did most of the talking, and we sat beside them as Paul held Linda’s hand and John held mine. It was nice to see the guys talk after all those years, even if a little stiffness existed between them.
The little stiffness came when the McCartneys, parents of three daughters at that point, did what people do when presented with a new baby of a friend, i.e. were about to cuddle the baby in question, when John blurted out he didn't want Paul to touch the child. Now, Yoko had had two miscarriages since she'd been with John; this was the first of their babies to survive, and it might simply have been parental overprotectiveness due to this backstory. Or there could have been something murkey going on in John's subconscious given that Paul had gotten along so well with Julian. (That same year, 1975, John had given an interview to Frances Schönberger in which he had stated he suspected Julian would rather be Paul's son.) Or both. Either way, it was a little hiccup in what had so far been a harmonious visit and called for diplomacy. Paul remembered the occasion in conversation with John's biographer Ray Coleman, where he saw, with the distance of years, the event as the product of the very different family backgrounds the four of them had. John being raised by his middle class aunt and uncle, eternally feeling abandoned by his own parents and naturally awkward with small children until he got to raise Sean, Yoko and Linda both daughters of very rich families with a distant relationship to their own parents and mostly raised by the servants, while the McCartneys were a big and boisterous working class clan with with dozens of baby cousins.
We said: "Oh, lovely baby, come on, can we get hold of him?" They said: "No, you'd better not." We said: "Well, we've had kids, we're all right, I won't drop him." I didn't come from that syndrome where you think they're like glass when you hold them. I jiggled them and relaxed. Linda said, as American women do: "Whenever our family had company, I pretty much had to go to bed." Yoko said: "When we had company, we had to go to bed, too." John said: "We didn't even have company." And I said: "Well, we did and we never had to go to bed. Mind you, it was always Uncle Joe, Auntie Joan, Auntie Gin and other relatives. But we never had to go to bed.
The no-touching-the-baby incident smoothed over, they got chatty again. Bob Gruen:
Paul told them about the pot bust in LA and how they'd been denied a Japanese visa, and how much he and Linda wanted to go to Japan. John and Yoko really loved Japan and went there a lot, so they talked about that. It was all pretty general, nothing about any business between them, and then when they got up to leave there was lots of hugging and kissing, general holiday good cheers. It was so fascinating seeing the two of them together like that with their wives, and everything totally pleasant.
Paul, this time to Barry Miles: I remember him coming up to me and hugging. He said, 'Touching is good. Touching's good,' and if I ever hug anyone now, that's a little thing that sticks in my mind. He was right, but the thing is, I actually knew it more than John did, he only was saying it because he was discovering it. I don't think he had a lot of cuddling, certainly not from his mother, because he wasn't even allowed to live with her.
Bob Gruen concluded: After they were gone, John and Yoko were saying, 'Wow! Do you believe that?' And they seemed to be so happy about the visit. Whatever fights had been going on between their lawyers, they knew each other too long and too well not to be glad about seeing each other.
In 1982, the BBC radio show Desert Island Disc had its 40th anniversary edition. The Beatles had appeared on it back in the day, so they played some of their songs and had Paul McCartney as a guest. He was also allowed to pick a non-Beatles song to play (not play as in perform, play as in broadcast on air). He chose Beautiful Boy, the song John had written for Sean. The episode was filmed, and thus you can see Paul discussing his song choice with presenter Roy Plomley, starting to listen to John's voice singing about his baby son and then humming along. I can't think of a better way to conclude my seasonal tale:
Sidenote: this wass not the famous "we almost were on Saturday Night Live" visit which was dramatized in the film Two of Us, which took place some months later, in April 1976.
Now, how do you say hello to John Lennon and Yoko Ono (and new baby) if you're Paul McCartney, thus optimistc by nature but not 100% sure about how you're going to be received, with enormous potential for awkwardness as well as friendliness? Here's the method of choice according to an eye witness of the encounter, photographer Bob Gruen (that's the one who took the famous New York City photo of John):
There was a big flash of paranoia when the doorbell rang. It was like, 'Oh my God, who can that be?' In the Dakota, every visitor gets announced from the desk downstairs, so when the bell on your apartment door rings suddenly, it's a real fright. It wasn't just a little paranoia - they were very scared, very nervous. They said to me, 'Go see who it is, don't open the door until you know what's going on,' and I went to the hallway and I heard what sounded like kids singing Christmas carols. So I called back to John and Yoko, 'Don't worry, it's some kids from the building singing carols,' and when I looked through, it was Paul and Linda. They were singing 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas', very cute, kind of adorable, just standing there singing. I said, 'I don't think you're looking for me; come on, I'll take you into the bedroom where John and Yoko are,' and they kept singing all the way in.
Let's interrupt Mr. Gruen here to state for the record that Paul and Linda serenading John and Yoko with "We wish you a merry christmas" is so unabashedly, endearingly and shamelessly sentimental that only Paul M. would have come up with it. John and Yoko, it appears, couldn't help but be charmed.
You know, you read about all the animosity between them, about how the Beatles' wives don't get along, but they all seemed like giddy old school chums. Hugging, patting each other on the back, the guys were like high-school buddies who hadn't seen each other in a long time and really liked each other. The girls were very chatty and pleasant. If you didn't read the magazines, you wouldn't know Yoko and Linda were supposed to hate each other, they were getting along just fine, continues Bob Gruen. They all went into the next room to look at Sean, who was just two months old.
Yoko in her obituary for Linda in Rolling Stone says, referring to that same visit and the preceding time: John and I would play Paul’s latest Wings record in our kitchen. John would say some nice things. He couldn’t say it to Paul, never, but when Paul was not around, John would say nice things about him. Was the ice finally starting to melt? (...) Paul and Linda came to visit us in New York. In a fine old Liverpool tradition, the two guys did most of the talking, and we sat beside them as Paul held Linda’s hand and John held mine. It was nice to see the guys talk after all those years, even if a little stiffness existed between them.
The little stiffness came when the McCartneys, parents of three daughters at that point, did what people do when presented with a new baby of a friend, i.e. were about to cuddle the baby in question, when John blurted out he didn't want Paul to touch the child. Now, Yoko had had two miscarriages since she'd been with John; this was the first of their babies to survive, and it might simply have been parental overprotectiveness due to this backstory. Or there could have been something murkey going on in John's subconscious given that Paul had gotten along so well with Julian. (That same year, 1975, John had given an interview to Frances Schönberger in which he had stated he suspected Julian would rather be Paul's son.) Or both. Either way, it was a little hiccup in what had so far been a harmonious visit and called for diplomacy. Paul remembered the occasion in conversation with John's biographer Ray Coleman, where he saw, with the distance of years, the event as the product of the very different family backgrounds the four of them had. John being raised by his middle class aunt and uncle, eternally feeling abandoned by his own parents and naturally awkward with small children until he got to raise Sean, Yoko and Linda both daughters of very rich families with a distant relationship to their own parents and mostly raised by the servants, while the McCartneys were a big and boisterous working class clan with with dozens of baby cousins.
We said: "Oh, lovely baby, come on, can we get hold of him?" They said: "No, you'd better not." We said: "Well, we've had kids, we're all right, I won't drop him." I didn't come from that syndrome where you think they're like glass when you hold them. I jiggled them and relaxed. Linda said, as American women do: "Whenever our family had company, I pretty much had to go to bed." Yoko said: "When we had company, we had to go to bed, too." John said: "We didn't even have company." And I said: "Well, we did and we never had to go to bed. Mind you, it was always Uncle Joe, Auntie Joan, Auntie Gin and other relatives. But we never had to go to bed.
The no-touching-the-baby incident smoothed over, they got chatty again. Bob Gruen:
Paul told them about the pot bust in LA and how they'd been denied a Japanese visa, and how much he and Linda wanted to go to Japan. John and Yoko really loved Japan and went there a lot, so they talked about that. It was all pretty general, nothing about any business between them, and then when they got up to leave there was lots of hugging and kissing, general holiday good cheers. It was so fascinating seeing the two of them together like that with their wives, and everything totally pleasant.
Paul, this time to Barry Miles: I remember him coming up to me and hugging. He said, 'Touching is good. Touching's good,' and if I ever hug anyone now, that's a little thing that sticks in my mind. He was right, but the thing is, I actually knew it more than John did, he only was saying it because he was discovering it. I don't think he had a lot of cuddling, certainly not from his mother, because he wasn't even allowed to live with her.
Bob Gruen concluded: After they were gone, John and Yoko were saying, 'Wow! Do you believe that?' And they seemed to be so happy about the visit. Whatever fights had been going on between their lawyers, they knew each other too long and too well not to be glad about seeing each other.
In 1982, the BBC radio show Desert Island Disc had its 40th anniversary edition. The Beatles had appeared on it back in the day, so they played some of their songs and had Paul McCartney as a guest. He was also allowed to pick a non-Beatles song to play (not play as in perform, play as in broadcast on air). He chose Beautiful Boy, the song John had written for Sean. The episode was filmed, and thus you can see Paul discussing his song choice with presenter Roy Plomley, starting to listen to John's voice singing about his baby son and then humming along. I can't think of a better way to conclude my seasonal tale:
